An assessment of reuse technology after ten years

More than ten years ago the first major workshop on “Reusability in Programming” was held. Since that time some technologies have advanced and come into successful commercial use while others have gone unused. New management and abstraction techniques have aided reuse. Interfacing to huge abstractions, now in common use, has made reuse more difficult. This paper is not a formal survey of reuse technology but instead discusses the evolution of early concepts and the issues they raise. Much of the research of the original workshop participants is just now becoming relevant. In some cases the research of the past points to problems and solutions for the present. As part of this examination the activities in reuse for the next ten years are forecast and a guide of hard questions to ask purveyors of reuse technology is provided